Nature, Technology, and Society: Cultural Roots of the Current Environmental Crisis - Hardcover

Ferkiss, Victor C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814726119 ISBN 13: 9780814726112

Publisher: New York University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Ferkiss (emeritus, government, Georgetown U.) delves thoughtfully into how various civilizations and cultures, including Western civilization, have historically looked at humanity, nature, and technology. He then looks at the conflicting attitudes of contemporary thinkers, seeking a balance, but maintaining a bias toward reverence for nature and an

About this title

About the Author:

VICTOR FERKISS is Professor Emeritus of Government, Georgetown University and the author of Technological Man and The Future of Technological Civilization.

Review:

"Haverty-Stacke offers a significantly more nuanced, complicated, and messier take on this trajectory, showing that radicalism has been an ongoing, endogenous part of American political culture and a vital component of twentieth-century politics and expressions of nationalism. She can make this argument so persuasively because of her focus on broad, vernacular politics, created as much in the street as in formal political processes... Forgetting the history of May Day is not just about forgetting earlier alternatives to the present day, but also about forgetting that radicalisms- of nearly every variety- are as American as apple pie."-American Historical Review,

"Haverty-Stacke marches through the post-Haymarket U. S. history of May Day with a determined step. In the long march across a century and more, she doesn't allow her interpretive feet stray too far from her designated path... Like Marx's burrowing 'old mole', May day certainly digs its way into apparent oblivion in specific periods when the tide of history seems to turn against those who speak boldly against oppression. It has been buried in the past, as Haverty-Stacke shows, but it is unlikely to remain permanently underground."-Labour History Review,

"Haverty-Stacke recounts how after WW II, American labor avoided contact with the communists and May Day celebrations. Instead, more workers and their unions became active in the new Labor Day holiday. This readable book, which blends US labor, political, and cultural history, can be used as a companion to any US history or labor history text."
-"Choice",

""America's Forgotten Holiday" details the long and proud history of May Day and compels us to recall both its contested meanings and wonder at the forces and motives of those who have obliterated our memory of it. Haverty-Stacke ties together the study of memory with that of public space while nimbly navigating the troubled, sectarian waters of communist and anti-communist history."
-Daniel J. Walkowitz, New York University

"Donna Haverty-Stackes "America's Forgotten Holiday offers a welcome reminder that not many generations ago, May Day brought more outbursts of idealism than new home construction, more social solidarity than consumerism, and the hopes for a democratic future that we need ever more urgently in the torrents of imperial wars today."
-Paul Buhle, Brown University

About this edition

• Publisher: New York University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0814726119
• ISBN 13: 9780814726112
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 450